Making Light Taste Rich And Heavy

November 03, 1988|By Elaine Markoutsas.

The way overweight people react to the taste of food makes it difficult for them to stick to a diet, says Dr. Susan Schiffman, professor of medical psychology and director of the obesity clinic at Duke University. Eighteen years of research with obese patients has led her to conclude that the overweight have a much greater need for flavor and texture in their food.

When she began to study obesity, Schiffman approached it behaviorally. She hoped to find a better avenue to treat this health hazard, one of the leading risk factors in premature death in the United States.

Shiffman asked her patients: ``What do you think is the problem?`` They most often answered: ``I like the taste of food.`` After a battery of psychological tests of both obese and anorexic patients, she found no personality factor to distinguish the two groups.

``Comparing a 400-pound patient and a 70-pound patient and finding nothing different in their psychological profiles led me to wonder if there were some kind of sensory preference dimension,`` she said.

Taste testing told another story. ``I found that anorexics hate anything fatty. They are revolted by whipping cream, for example. But give whipping cream to an overweight person, and he`s happy. The amounts of taste, smell and texture needed to satisfy the overweight are much greater. They crave crunch, elasticity, creaminess,`` she says.

``There`s a feeling of deprivation when they are dieting. But it`s not calorie deprivation. It`s these higher levels of taste and texture.``

So Schiffman began to develop some ``tricks.`` For a ``crunchy`` dessert, she dished up a half cup of strawberries, put on a low-cal chocolate powder, a sugar substitute, topped with a fiber-rich cereal-all of which amounted to less than 30 calories.

She developed hundreds of powders that packed an exaggerated flavor punch without the dreaded calories. Add a packet of cheddar flavor to steamed broccoli and suddenly it`s more palatable and satisfying.

The flavor enhancers are made with a gas chromatograph, which, according to Schiffman, essentially boils off the volatile substances or odor and leaves the calories behind. That essence-cheese, bacon, Mexican seasonings, butter-is mixed with inert ingredients to create a powder that can be sprinkled on food. Flavor Enhancers (8 calories on average per packet) are available commercially at more than 800 Nutri/System Inc., weight-reduction centers across the country. Schiffman also developed Fruity Flavor Chews, low-cal (25 calories per 6-piece serving), high-fiber alternatives to calorie-rich snacks with a ``chewy, gummy`` texture, and a line of freeze-dried entrees with heightened flavor and texture.

``Forty-two percent of our calories generally come from fat,`` says Schiffman. ``We should be consuming only about 20 percent. But it`s very clear why people don`t stick to liquid diets or diets of lettuce and cottage cheese. They want flavor and texture.

``By intensifying both, you can be satiated when you eat. The difference between a highly caloric food and an enhancer is like the difference between deep-dish and thin-crusted pizza or a rich chocolate torte and a chocolate mousse. You can only eat a few bites of the richer food.``

Create the feeling that you`re really getting stuffed and it just may work. -